KCWC: Strawberry Pajamas

KCWC is Elsie Marley's challenge to sew kids clothes for one hour a day for a week. I'm counting yesterday's kcwc project for two days. Yesterday, I sewed for 3 hours. And today we had to be out of the house all day so that our new boiler could be installed (yay! heating! hot water!) so sewing was not at all possible. 

I am so pleased with how my little girl's nightgown turned out and learned by making it that I need to take a little more care when I follow patterns. I used a pattern that my mom shipped me from California, McCalls Pattern M4963, and I cut out a size 5-6 for my 4-year-old. The other option was a size 3-4. I assumed the smaller size would be too small. I didn't take any measurements to confirm. Oops! As soon as I began sewing the pieces together I realised the nightgown was going to be HUGE...and it was. You can see what the nightgown should have looked like on my mom's blog, Jerry and Kay. She made a really nice one for my niece - it fit perfectly.

 

After I sewed it all together, the seriously fun part began because I had to get creative in order to figure out a way to make the nightgown fit. I ripped the stitches from the neck facing, turned it up, and gathered the edge. Fortunately, it worked. Now the neck doesn't fall off her shoulders. This was my lazy way of not creating more work for myself than I already had...and I love how it turned out!  

After fixing the neck, I cut a few inches off the sleeves and gathered them with elastic. I was so eager to finish that I decided not to hem the sleeves. Easy. Then I used some of my extra fabric to make a ruffle for the bottom...this was in an effort to make this nightgown resemble her favorite purple nightgown that Nanny made. Once again, no hemming. And done.

After trying it on for the 11th time, it seemed to work...so much that I think she forgot she had it on, went right back to playing and left it on until the next morning.

The next morning, she said she felt like a princess when she went to sleep and she was so warm that she didn't even need her blue blanket (sorry Aunt Mary) and she only needed her quilt...this may have been the first night of her life that she didn't sleep with the blue blanket.

☼